The relation of eye movements during sleep to dream activity : an objective method for the study of dreams
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Aim
Dement and Kleitman aimed to provide a more detailed investigation of how the objective / physiological aspects of rapid eye movement relate to the subjective experience of dreaming.
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Hypothesis 1
There is a significant association between REM and reported dreaming.
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Hypothesis 2
There is a significant positive correlation between the length of time spent in REM sleep and the duration of dreaming.
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Hypothesis 3
There is a relationship between the pattern of eye movements and the reported content of the dream.
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Method
Design : Laboratoty eperimentation and observation
Subjects: 9 adult participants (7male and 2 female)from the Chicago area of America. Five of the participants werestudied intensively and the other fourwere used to confirm the findings
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Procedure
Each participant reported to lab just before usual bedtime for a polysomnography.
They were to told to avoid caffeine or alcohol during the day. Electrodes attached to head and faces.
Participants slept individually in a quiet dark room.
EEG continuously recorded brain activity.
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Procedure for Hypothesis 1
Participants were woken several times during the night by the researchers and they were asked to speak immediately into a tape recorder about their dreams.
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Procedure for Hypothesis 2
Participants were woken up after being in REM for either 5 or 15 minutes and were asked to state how long they had been dreaming for.
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Procedure for Hypothesis 3
Participants were woken up after one of four eye movement patterns occurred :
1. Vertical
2. Horizontal
3. Vertical and Horizontal
4. Little or no eye movement
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Controls
There was no contact between researchers and participants during dream recall:
1. woken by doorbell
2. spoke into tape recorder
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Findings
REM periods were clearly observed and distinguished from non-REM periods, in all participants.
It is most likely that REM sleep is the only time we dream.
There was a strong association between the patterns of rapid eye movements and the content of dream reports.
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Evaluation - Strengths
Ethical
Strong evidence that REM sleep is a dream sleep
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Evaluation - Weaknesses
Small sample - not representative
Low ecological validity
Possible ethnocentric bias (carried out only in US)
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